About 12 years ago I was the Director of IT (yep, I was the tech gal).  Boy, did I love it!  IP addresses… troubleshooting…giving people their first-ever email accounts and watching their eyes light up.  It was like Christmas all year round.  People thought I walked on water.  I was in heaven. 

Then I had the opportunity to move up the ladder and I took it… all the way to the C-Suite.  What a life transition.  There I learned to walk through the hallways of hell and avoid the singe. People in my new level of the organization did not understand the potential of using technology and social media.  Social media was not on their radar. let alone the business plan. Looking back, I feel so blessed to have had the tech gal experience. I intuitively knew what the potential ROI– Return on Investment- could be.   I saw that for very little money an organization could influence the brand perception.

There are so many managers and execs out there who are freightened and uninformed about the power of social media. Nathan Gilliat reminds us of this in his post about the five stupid reasons that companies avoid social media.  A tip of the hat to him for his robust treatment of this timely and important topic.  He dispells the myths.

I would add one more:  some workplaces are freaked out by the possibility of turning their employees loose to use social media.  The fear is that productivity will decrease.  With a little bit of training that involves a policy or two about appropriate use,productivity increase as gen Y and Xers happily work in their element.  They will feel respected and rewarded for their skills. Collectively the branding influence that they have could be huge. 

Facebook, anyone?